​Education is the gift that keeps on giving. Shortly after Project Angel launched last May, five Thayer Academy Global Scholars succeeded in raising awareness and $4,710 in funds for educational campaigns in Haiti, Nepal, Peru and Zambia. In January 2019, as part of her Global Scholar’s Independent Project, Johany Madrid ('19)will continue Project Angel’s mission to support education in under-served communities by building a campaign in partnership with the Ometepe Bilingual School in Nicaragua, a school in which Johany has volunteered.

We have retained from last spring one project that especially sustains Project Angel's commitment. Annie Huycke('18) was the valedictorian for her class and graduated as a Global Scholar. Her independent project was to launch the Haiti Youth Education Fund (HYEF), a campaign that finances the education at Quisqueya University of four promising young students from the community of Bon Repos, just north of Port-au-Prince. For more information, and to gift an angel in support, click on Who We Are. For each donation of $40, you will receive a beautiful standing angel hand-crafted in Haiti from up-cycled oil drums. Our angels arrive in custom-designed boxes via U.S. mail with hand-written inserts of gratitude.

Regardless of culture or religion, angels are universal symbols of protection, guidance, and support. Here at Project Angel, our mission is to provide support to students and teachers around the world by raising awareness to the need for, as well as funds to promote, greater global equity in education. In exchange for your gift to one of our campaigns you will receive a token of our gratitude: an angel hand-crafted from up-cycled oil-drums in Haiti. Click the button below to learn more about their creation.

The Global Scholars Program

Seniors at Thayer Academy in our Global Scholars Program are encouraged to investigate and engage with organisations active in the educational sector in lesser-developed countries. Once they have identified worthy projects, students craft campaigns to raise awareness. Our website integrates and articulates these campaigns and provides a model to fund them. In so doing, Thayer students pay forward a gift that keeps on giving, the education of young people from under-served communities who, in turn, will contribute to the common good.

Project Angel​​1. Objective: The goal of Project Angel is to support educational development in countries with populations that are under-served. Twin prongs of awareness-raising and fund-raising are central to this initiative. Our objective is founded on three pillars:

(i) Education is a human right: Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Goal 4 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and the 2030 Incheon Declaration, all posit that quality education should be accessible to all. It is fundamental to values of inclusion and equity. We believe that young people in private schools should actively support this right at home and abroad.

(ii) Educational development is a holistic enterprise: we look favorably on partnerships with non-profit organizations, NGOs, and ministries of education that take initiative in all aspects of education: sponsorship and scholarship programs; teacher professional development; curriculum development; school building. All levels of education, from early-childhood to adult, are considered.

(iii) Education should be supported by not-for-profit practices: our model insists that all efforts in our community are entirely volunteer, that no one is paid for time or service, and that all partners are strictly vetted for non-profit best practices. All donations are ear-marked for specific educational programs. Students at Thayer Academy in the Global Scholars Program are responsible for managing our operations.

2. Our Model: Seniors at Thayer Academy in our Global Scholars Program are encouraged to investigate and engage with organizations active in the educational sector in lesser-developed countries. In identifying worthy projects that adhere to our three pillars, students craft campaigns to raise awareness. Our website articulates these projects and provides a model to fund them with small donations. In return, donors receive an angel (hand-crafted in Haiti from up-cycled oil-drums) as a token of gratitude for their support. Angels can be gifted by the donor to friends and family members who will receive details of how their contribution is allocated. The angels are gift-wrapped and packaged by students at Thayer Academy, then dispatched by mail. For each donation of $40, $30 goes directly to the designated project ($10 is required to pay the artist and his workshop team, as well as cover shipping, handling, packaging and mailing costs).